Page 155 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

He pressed the pedal down and swung the wheel again, trying to get back on track. He had lost momentum. He managed to steer toward the exit barrier. He did not know whether he was going fast enough to break it. Resisting the impulse to change gear, he let the engine shriek in first.

He felt a sudden pain as if someone had stuck a knife in his leg. He shouted out in shock and agony. His foot came up off the pedal, and the van immediately slowed. He had to force himself to press down again, despite how it hurt. He screamed in pain. He felt hot blood run down his calf into his shoe.

The van hit the second timber barrier. Again Walli was thrown forward; again the wheel bruised his ribs; again the wooden bar splintered and fell away; and again the van kept going.

The van crossed a patch of concrete. The gunfire ceased. Walli saw a street with shops, advertisements for Lucky Strike and Coca-Cola, shiny new cars, and, best of all, a small group of startled soldiers in American uniforms. He took his foot off the accelerator and tried to brake. Suddenly the pain was too much. His leg felt paralyzed, and he was unable to press down on the brake pedal. In desperation he steered the van into a lamppost.

The soldiers rushed to the van and one threw open the door. "Well done, kid, you made it!" he said.

I made it, Walli thought. I'm alive, and I'm free. But without Karolin.

"Hell of a ride," the soldier said admiringly. He was not much older than Walli.

As Walli relaxed, the pain became overwhelming. "My leg hurts," he managed to say.

The soldier looked down. "Jeez, look at all that blood." He turned and spoke to someone behind him. "Hey, call an ambulance."

Walli passed out.

*

Walli got his bullet wound stitched up and was discharged from hospital the next day with bruised ribs and a bandage around the calf of his right leg.

According to the newspapers, the border guard he had run over had died.

Limping, Walli went to the Franck television factory and told his story to the Danish accountant, Enok Andersen, who undertook to tell Werner and Carla that he was all right. Enok gave Walli some West German deutschmarks, and Walli got a room at the YMCA.

His ribs hurt every time he turned over in bed, and he slept badly.

Next day he retrieved his guitar from the van. The instrument had survived the crossing without damage, unlike Walli. However, the vehicle was a write-off.

Walli applied for a West German passport, granted automatically to escapers.

He was free. He had escaped from the suffocating puritanism of Walter Ulbricht's Communist regime. He could play and sing anything he chose.

And he was miserable.

He missed Karolin. He felt as if he had lost a hand. He kept thinking of things he would tell her or ask her tonight or tomorrow, then suddenly remembering that he could not speak to her; and the dreadful recollection hit him every time like a kick in the stomach. He would see a pretty girl on the street, and think about what he and Karolin might do next Saturday in the back of Joe's van; then he would realize that there would be no more evenings in the back of the van, and he would feel stricken by grief. He walked past clubs where he might get a gig, then wondered if he could bear to perform without Karolin at his side.

He spoke on the phone to his sister Rebecca, who urged him to come and live in Hamburg with her and her husband; but he thanked her and declined. He could not bring himself to leave Berlin while Karolin was still in the East.

Missing her grievously, he took his guitar a week later to the Minnesanger folk club, where he had met her two years ago. A sign outside said it was not open on Mondays, but the door stood ajar, so he went in anyway.

Sitting at the bar, adding up figures in a ledger, was the club's young compere and owner, Danni Hausmann. "I remember you," said Danni. "The Bobbsey Twins. You were great. Why did you never come back?"

"The Vopos smashed up my guitar," Walli explained.

"But now you have another, I see."

Walli nodded. "But I've lost Karolin."

"That was careless. She was a pretty girl."

"We both lived in the East. She's still there, but I escaped."

"How?"

"I drove a van through the barrier."

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